As the solstice sun
began to sink behind the misty hills of Pertak on June 22, a wild-eyed
Rafik Benut staggered towards Lot 22, Kampung Pertak, brandishing a bunch
of keys and a parang. No one made an attempt to stop him as he let
himself into the house after a bit of fumbling with the keys. Even the
dogs gave him a wide berth. Rafik was well-known for his violent outbursts,
especially when intoxicated.

About three years ago, Rafik had suddenly reappeared in the village,
having served a 6-year jail sentence for chopping up the headman’s 19-year-old
daughter and attempting to burn the gory evidence. The headman, Bidar Chik,
asked that Rafik be relocated to another community but the JHEOA (Orang
Asli Affairs Department) overrode his protests. Rafik was a reformed man,
they asserted, and furthermore had converted to Islam while in prison.*

For months he had been coveting this house, which belonged to his uncle
Selindar Babot (who was involved in the love triangle with Rafik and Bidar’s
daughter which ended in bloodshed and grief). Selindar shared the house
with two other old bachelors – Utat and Uja – but all three preferred
to live 40 minutes away in a rundown shanty overlooking the river. Since
they weren’t comfortable in the new 3-bedroom chalet-style house built
by the dam consortium as part of the resettlement scheme, the old men had
agreed to let some friends from KL use it as a weekend retreat – in exchange
for a monthly food allowance of RM100 each. All parties were happy with
this arrangement – except for a particular faction in the village who had
been groomed to serve as the eyes and ears of the JHEOA.

When the Selangor Dam project was announced in late 1998, Bidar Chik
had been outspoken in his criticism. He openly supported the No-Dam campaign,
much to the consternation of the JHEOA. Eventually, Bida was pacified and
“turned around” with generous presents and veiled threats by agents of
the dam consortium – but he was now regarded as an uncooperative party
by the JHEOA which began to cultivate a special relationship with Bidar’s
deputy, Uha Anak Penengah.

A once quiet and unassuming man, Uha soon turned into a different personality.
With the JHEOA behind him, Uha acquired an aura of self-importance and
de facto leadership of a group of disgruntled young men with no strong
ties to tradition and few hopes for the future. Some of them once had jobs
with the dam consortium, driving trucks or operating excavators. Others
are grass cutters with private contractors and harvest bamboo or petai
on
the side. But most of them spend the better part of their wages at the
local liquor store – and on motorbike repairs each time they fall off their
machines after a binge, which is more often than not.

Uha’s popularity among the disenchanted youth of Kg Pertak was further
enhanced when he bought some musical instruments and turned his bachelor
pad into a rehearsal space for the village combo. He himself learnt how
to play drums fairly well, and on weekends the boom and thud of bass and
drums would carry on till nearly dawn. Uha had had little luck finding
himself a wife (he was married to a girl from Pahang for less than a week
before she died suddenly and mysteriously) and, at 45, looked likely to
join the Kg Pertak Old Bachelors’ Club.

Rumours were rife that Uha had set his romantic sights on Apin, one
of the village belles, even offering her parents a large sum of money for
her hand. But Apin favoured the attentions of an “outsider” – a young man
from KL who had been visiting Pertak regularly for years – and who was
lodging for a while at Lot 22 (Selindar, Utat and Uja’s house). Uja, before
he died in March, had adopted this young man as his son.

Village legend has it that Uha’s deceased father Penengah had been rather
truculent and troublesome in his day, causing inter-familial feuds that
endured long after his passing. Indeed, the truculent gene seems to have
been passed down to many of his sons and grandsons.

In March 1999 Ramsit Anggong, the headman of
Kg Gerachi, lodged a police report against Uha and a few of his nephews
for bashing him up so badly he needed to be hospitalized for five days.

No action was ever taken against the Pertak rowdies – and soon afterwards
Ramsit buckled under pressure and signed over his ancestral lands to the
dam project for a hefty cash compensation (more than a million, some say)
and membership in the Kuala Kubu Baru Golf Club.

SHADOW HEADMAN

By the time Kg Pertak
was relocated and the villagers handed the keys to their brand new brick
houses with electricity and running water, Bidar Chik had virtually been
bypassed by the JHEOA, whose officers preferred to deal with their hand-picked
shadow headman Uha Anak Penengah - a willing accomplice to the Orang Asli
Affairs Department’s agenda of maintaining their 50-year control of all
Orang Asli tribes in the Malay Peninsula.

There were initial problems arising from the allocation of houses. Uha
was given a house to share with his younger brother Ayul – but they weren’t
on the best of terms. Ayul decided to clear an area upstream of the village
to build his own plank house. Bidar claimed that spot as part of his tanah
pusaka (ancestral land) and tried to stop Ayul from proceeding, whereupon
Ayul’s Indonesian friends bound Bidar to a tree and threatened him with
a chainsaw. Bida reported to the police and they paid a visit to Ayul’s
encampment but found no one around, so they left it at that.

Bidar has understandably been keeping a low profile in the village, acutely
aware that he was now headman in name only. One of the women wanted to
open a café and small provision shop in Kg Pertak and decided the
ideal location would be on the edge of the soccer field, near a popular
picnic spot. Bidar was briefed on the plan and expressed his support. However,
he said he would first have to consult the JHEOA on the matter as he had
no power to give the go-ahead. The JHEOA declared that the project had
potential but didn’t think the location was suitable. With that, a rare
show of entrepreneurial initiative by an Orang Asli was prematurely nipped
in the bud.

After 50 years of being colonized in their
own homeland, most Orang Asli are incapable of pushing for what they want,
believing there will always be someone in authority with the power to stop
them.

And no one can blame them for feeling that way, since the JHEOA has
become accustomed to treating their legal wards like one would a problematic
stepchild.

Rafik Benut’s attempt to claim Lot 22, as it transpired, was instigated
by Uha Anak Penengah, with the tacit endorsement of the JHEOA (or, at least,
its agents in the Kuala Kubu Baru office). During a chat with two senior
JHEOA officers, it became clear that they weren’t happy about Selindar
and his friends continuing to live in the forest, following the old ways.
If they chose to let out their property to “outsiders” the Department would
hand the house over to their “Muslim convert,” a convicted killer on parole
with a history of drunken brawling. Never mind if that would mean an abrupt
loss of regular income for the old men. The residents of Kg Pertak wouldn’t
know, anyway, that the JHEOA has no legal authority to confiscate property
from Orang Asli they deem “uncooperative” to pass on to their own “willing
stooges.”

In any case, how did an ex-convict and murderer acquire the keys to
Lot 22? The JHEOA agents had handed a spare set to Uha, their “mainman”
in Kg Pertak, who then passed the keys to his hatchet man and protégé,
Rafik Benut. Ironically, these are the men entrusted by the JHEOA with
maintaining village security.

And what did the official headman have to say about this entire affair?
Bidar Chik was disturbed that not only was Rafik still at large in Kg Pertak
and plaguing his peace of mind, but that the JHEOA had heavy-handedly overridden
his authority and lent official support to one of Uha’s hooligans, instigating
him to commit unlawful entry into another’s property. But Bidar was at a
complete loss as to what he could do to restore order to his village. “Maybe
you could invite the press here?” he suggested. “I want the world to know
that hoodlums are intimidating the peace-loving folk of Kg Pertak.”

Rafik and some of Uha’s gang have repeatedly harassed Selindar and Utat
for the house keys until the old men were paralyzed with fear and unable
to speak their feelings. They have no desire to let Rafik seize the house
from them and deprive them of a regular cash income, but want Bidar to resolve
the issue on their behalf. Will the meek inherit the Earth?

I’m often asked by well-wishers what they can do to help the Orang Asli.
Some offer to donate clothes, foodstuff, books, toys. Others are eager
to conduct educational workshops with the kids or sponsor intercultural
exchanges. A few are keen to raise funds for projects that could benefit
the Orang Asli. It’s actually quite amazing how many urbanites in recent
years have suddenly become aware of their brethren in “remote” areas and
sincerely desire to contribute positively to the future of our Orang Asli
communities.

Every little effort helps, I say, it’s always reassuring to know that
one has so many friends out there. But the greatest stumbling block to
the Orang Asli ever regaining the self-esteem and self-confidence, without
which they are unlikely to ever regain their self-reliance, is the government
department set up in 1954 to “manage their affairs” - and which continues
to do so today when no legal or political justification exists, nor does
a “communist threat.”

“You wouldn’t know what it’s like to be Orang Asli,” I tell them, “until
you’ve lived under the ‘benign’ despotism of the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang
Asli for a few generations.”

8 July 2003

*14 November 2005 Update:

More
than two years have passed since I wrote this report and there have
been significant shifts in the general morale in Kg Pertak. For a
start, the generations-old feud between Penengah's clan and the Batin's
clan seems to have lost its charge and the entire village is a great
deal more mellow and relaxed. A contributing factor to the
newfound peace may well be the 'Bamboo Palace' project inaugurated in
February 2005 when I commissioned Hitam Anak Hitap (better known as Yam
Kokok) to build a thatch-roofed hut behind #21 Kg Pertak, to be used as
a guesthouse. Yam Kokok is married to one of Penengah's daughters.

When
construction began, Yam Kokok recruited several of his relatives to
help gather and weave the bertam
leaves for the massive roof. Indeed, a good cross-section of the
various clans ended up on the payroll for the 'Bamboo Palace'
project.
In the three months it took to complete, I noticed that tensions began
to ease as work progressed on the hut. Being given the chance to
construct a traditional style hut, which requires intensive labour and
cooperation, seemed to have a therapeutic effect on everybody who
contributed energy to the project. In the end, exactly half the overall
construction budget of RM8,000 went towards labour - and even the
youngsters who helped carry materials were paid in cash as well as in
food and drinks.

Indeed, the biggest shift of
all occurred late one night several months ago, when Ayul, younger
brother of Uha, came to visit me unexpectedly. He was completely
sloshed but apparently needed someone to converse with, so I invited
him up and offered him a hot coffee. Ayul told me a lot of stories
about various characters in the village, but what struck me hardest was
when he stated that Rafik had been wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he
didn't commit. When I
questioned him further on this, Ayul merely said that Rafik has been
his housemate for a few years now and has no need to hide the truth
from him.

Weeks later, I heard Rafik
yelling at my dogs and complaining that he had been bitten. I went down
to investigate and saw that there was just a small tooth mark on his
ankle where one of my dogs had nipped him. The skin wasn't even broken
but Rafik made a huge fuss and demanded RM20 cash compensation.
I gave him a blast of energetic healing, then went back to the house
and returned with RM10, which Rafik accepted with delight and
gratitude. This simple event shifted his formerly hostile attitude
towards me.

Early in November, I saw Rafik
waiting for the bus to town and offered him a lift. It was the first
time he had sat in my van. I turned around and asked him point blank:
"Did you kill the Batin's daughter?" - adding, "Look, you were found
guilty and sent to jail for six years, so it makes no difference to you
- but it makes a difference to me. I want to know straight from you
what the truth is."

"Aku sumpah," Rafik said, "I
swear I didn't do it." So why did he let his uncle Selindar off the
hook? He refused to discuss it further, saying it was all in the past.

Before he got off opposite the
Kuala Kubu Baru Post Office, I shook Rafik's hand and apologized to him
for having believed all these years that he was indeed a murderer - and
for describing him as such.

What was recorded in July 2003 stands as a document of the situation THEN. However, it's absolutely essential to set the record STRAIGHT.